


dog days at polygon

by DemiBoyDoesStuff



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe, Autism, Disabled Character, I'm bad at finishing works, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Service Dogs, accidental ableism, vitriolic ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2020-11-27 18:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20952842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiBoyDoesStuff/pseuds/DemiBoyDoesStuff
Summary: It’s not until the day before the new hire is supposed to show up that Patrick learns he has a service dog.Which is fine, of course, technically Pat doesn’t need any kind of warning for his coworkers accommodations, but he still would have liked to know that he has to make the mental fortifications to be around a dog all day and not pet it. Also he would have liked to have a little more time to google how he’s supposed to interact with a coworker with a service dog, but it’s fine, wikihow will have to work.Or, Patrick falls in love with his strange young co-worker.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a disclaimer that I do not think that BDG has autism irl, I'm just having a weird time in my life and I want to project a little. Autism as it's portrayed here is based on my own personal experiences as an autistic person.

It’s not until the day before the new hire is supposed to show up that Patrick learns he has a service dog, it's mentioned in the same email that tells them they have a meeting tomorrow to introduce him to the team and reminds them of Vox Media's inclusion statement. 

Which is fine, of course, technically Pat doesn’t need any kind of warning for his coworkers accommodations, but he still would have liked to know that he has to make the mental fortifications to be around a dog all day and not pet it. Also he would have liked to have a little more time to google how he’s supposed to interact with a coworker with a service dog, but it’s fine, wikihow will have to work. 

(wikihow mostly just tells him not to talk about the dog)

They have an all hands meeting in the morning where their new coworker introduces himself (Brian) and his dog (Aspen) and they’re both adorable. Brian has this young, anxious vibe and speaks in a way that’s just slightly off but in a fun goofy way and Aspen is, well she’s a dog, and therefore incapable of not being adorable, but it doesn’t help that she’s an objectively beautiful black white and tan shepherd mix with clear blue eyes. Pat does wonder where Brian got the “Polygon employee” patch she wears on her vest, but other than her objective cuteness she’s shockingly unobtrusive, laying down at Brian’s feet and napping through most of the meeting. 

“Ok that’s all I’ve got,” Tara says at the end of the meeting, “but I think Brian’s got something to say, right Brian?” 

Brian looks surprised and nervous but he nods and smiles “Yeah, so, I know it can be hard to work around a dog you can never pet, so I thought maybe I could take her vest off and we could have a little dog party, that way when she goes back to work, it's less of a thing.” everyone’s interest in the meeting is suddenly rekindled as the room breaks out into nods and murmurs of agreement barely hiding excitement.

“Ok,” Brian says, reaching down to unfasten Aspen’s “if you’re not a dog person feel free to take off I guess?” he looks to Tara, who nods in agreement, “I won’t be offended”.

Nobody leaves.

Aspen is released and the room quickly devolves into everyone trying their best to get and keep her attention. Aspen seems basically unaware, bouncing from person to person at her own leisure and checking in with Brian occasionally.

“So,” Jenna asks, when the meeting has devolved into everyone gathering around Aspen to pet her “is she gonna be in your videos?” 

Brian balks and Aspen quickly extracts herself from the grasps of Polygon employees to rest her head on his knee.

“Probably not, she would cause continuity errors” he says, giving Aspen some nice ear scritches, although Pat gets the feeling there’s more to it than that.

“That’s a shame,” Simone says “she could probably pull in more traffic than any of us” Brian just laughs nervously.

Charles takes great offence to him smelling like dog that night.

Pat doesn’t see a lot of Aspen after that meeting, which is weird because he does see a lot of Brian and Aspen is always with him, but she’s always under the desk or table that Brian's at, out of sight and out of mind. It’s easy to forget she even exists until he sees him up and about with Aspen clipped to his belt or just obediently trotting beside him and then Pat has to go through a moment of mental gymnastics to go from “there’s a dog at work!” to “that is a working dog who must be ignored”. Usually he can do that before Brian even notices he’s there.

He’s also not really sure what Aspen  _ does _ . He’s never seen her do work, unless standing between Brian and his coworkers or sitting on Brian’s feet is work, and Brian seems… Pat wants to say he seems normal, but that’s not really the right word, he doesn’t seem disabled, just anxious.

Not that Pat doesn’t like Brian or anything, he’s funny and energetic and an absolute joy to be around. He’s probably the only human being who Pat has ever met who gets the zoomies. Sometimes at work he’ll get up and jump by his desk or flap his hands or run to the breakroom and back or do an impromptu dance, Pat once saw him stop midconversation with Clayton to jump higher than Pat would think possible and do a midair split. 

Pat loves doing videos with him and he would be totally on board to do more projects with Brian, which why Pat is so chill about Brian and him being called in for a meeting by Tara, because that’s usually her asking them to pick up a project 

When Pat gets there Brian is already there with Aspen, and he looks like a wreck. He’s hugging himself and rocking back on his heels, he doesn’t even glance at Pat, just keeps staring at the pencil cup on Tara’s desk. It makes Pat reassess the situation and try to figure out who’s in trouble. He stands next to Brian and Aspen immediately switches sides to stand between them like she always does when people stand next to Brian.

“You two know you’re not meeting your hourly requirements, yes?” Tara asks

“Yeah” Pat says, Brian nods quickly, Aspen whines, which is probably the first time Pat’s heard her make sound.

“Hey, look, you’re not in trouble, I just want you guys to pick up a new project, nothing too intensive, just something that can take up like an hour or two a week, you guys can think something up and run it past me, sound good?”

“Sure” Pat says

“Today?” Brian squeaks, looking just as anxious as he did at the start of the meeting. 

“Not today, just get me an idea by the end of the week.” Tara smiles gently

“Ok,” she says “that’s all I needed to talk to you about, you’re free to go” 

And yeah, Brain is just gone. Pat glances at Tara, who doesn’t seem surprised by Brian’s sudden disappearance.

“He ok?” Pat asks

“Um-hm” Tara hums “his dog signaled so there’s something that he has to take care of, I’m sure he’ll get back to you later” 

Pat finds out from a google search that dogs can alert to basically anything, from low blood sugar, to PTSD flashbacks, to regular old panic attacks and things suddenly click into place. Brian has anxiety, everyone knows that, he talks about it freely and even jokes about it online, and according to google anxiety can be bad enough to warrant a service dog, so that must be what Aspen is for. Pat considers digging deeper into anxiety service dogs for long enough to type it into the search bar before realizing that his whole realization is probably edging into a breach of privacy and any more digging would absolutely take him over that line. He guiltily closes the tab and deletes any of his browser history related to anxiety and service dogs.

Brian does in fact get back to him later, after lunch, he looks pretty bad actually, like he cried earlier, and he’s clearly exhausted under his fake cheer, but Pat gets it, panic attacks are a bitch. They do get a pretty good brainstorming session in, settling on an after hours stream as their project. The exacts, like what time they’re gonna do it and what they’re going to do are still entirely hazy, but it’s enough that by the end of the week they’ll be able to turn something into Tara. 

“So are you uh, good now?” Pat asks. He has no idea how to check up on someone who just had a panic attack without coming across as an ass, but a simple “you good” seems like the best option 

“Yeah,” Brian says, rubbing his face, “I mean, I’m real tired and I basically lost a whole mornings worth of work, but other than that, yeah I’m good.” 

“Can you work from home for the rest of the day?”

“No, I’m good, I’m good, do you want to keep working on steam ideas?” 

“Nah,” Pat says “I’ve got a lot of editing to do, maybe we could do more planing tomorrow, get some lunch and brainstorm?” it’s a bit of a lie, Pat has editing to do but could probably keep working with Brian, he just doesn’t want to keep Brian from whatever work he missed or stress him out more over their new project.

“Yeah, I can do lunch.” Brian says 

“Cool, I’ll see you later then.”

“Yep, yeah, see you.” Brian says, there’s this awkward moment where it’s like Brain isn’t sure if he’s supposed to leave or not, but he gets up and awkwardly waves goodbye before heading back to his desk.

Pat’s on his way out for the day when he next sees Brian, he’s talking with Tara and while Pat can’t hear anything they’re saying, Tara looks like she’s apologizing. She says a few things while Brian nods, she squeezes his shoulder and says something else, Brian nods gets up and she gives him a nice firm hug, and Tara isn’t the tough uncaring boss that she sometimes pretends to be in videos, but this is more sweet and gentle than she usually is with them. She pulls away, but still holds Brian’s arms, she tells him something while nodding her head and he nods back. 

Pat decides to take off before either of them notice that he watched their whole interaction like a nosy weirdo.

Charles is still upset when he comes home smelling like dog.

“Are we still doing lunch today?” Brian asks at 11:45 on the dot.

“Uh, yeah, thanks for reminding me” Pat says, he’s in the middle of a script, and he doesn’t usually go to lunch until closer to one. Pat glances up from his monitor and realizes that Brian is still standing there.

“Oh, now?” Pat asks

“Yeah! Yeah, this is when I usually go.” Brian bounces on the balls of his feet, perpetually unable to stay still.

“Ok, just give me a second to finish this” Brian nods and keeps bouncing, Aspen lays down. 

It takes about five minutes to finish up this section of the script, Brian doesn’t try to make small talk while he does it, which is nice, Pat would probably lose his thoughts if he was forced to talk. 

“Ok” Pat says, typing up the last word and double checking that everything is saved, “let’s go.” gets up and brushes his hands on his pants out of habit.

“Great” Brian beams, “we’re getting out right on time, where do you want to go?”

“There’s a really good pizza place just down the street that I go to a lot if that’s good for you, but uh, you know we don’t have to go to lunch at noon, you can go basically whenever.” Pat realizes a second to late that Brian does probably know that and now he seems like an asshole who thinks he has to over explain everything to his disabled coworker.

“I know,” Brian says, seemingly unaffected by Pat’s slip up. “I just like to do things at the same time every day, routines are good.” 

“Creature of habit?” Pat asks like an idiot as he calls the elevator

“Oh yeah, I was way worse as a kid, if my morning routine was messed up I would be such a wreck I wouldn’t even go to school that day.”

“Miss a lot of school then?”

“Let’s just say I never got awarded for my attendance records” 

“So, I uh, I am a 30 year old man with no structure in his life to speak of.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah so I think a lot of people get out of their parents houses and they’re like, oh cool, I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and they do that for a couple years in college and then they realize-no”

“No! That’s such a bad idea” 

“Right, no! It’s not a good way to live, so they set up a routine, but I uh, I never did that?”

“Pat Gill! You must be living in chaos!”

“Yes, I am, that’s why I’m late all the time.” Brian laughs

“Uh, so the reason I’ve been late so much is, well at first because new job, new routine right?”

“Right”

“But also Laura’s hours just changed so she’s not there in the morning anymore? And that really messes me up because she used to help with the routine and now she can’t.”

“Oh, are her hours gonna change back?”

“Probably not, but I’ve got a new Laura free morning routine so that’s fine” Pat holds open the restaurant door for Brian.

“So it will only be a problem if she goes back to being in the apartment in the morning.”

“No dogs in the restaurant.” the man behind the counter says

“She’s a service dog.” Brian says quickly, all of the humor from their walk over is gone. The man regards Aspen with suspicion 

“Last service dog stole food from another customer.” 

“Well, I’m sorry you had that experience, that dog was clearly improperly trained-” Brian stumbles a bit on his words and Pat doesn’t quite know what to do.

“Uh, I work with this dog every day and I’ve never seen her try to steal food” Pat provides 

“Yeah- yeah a properly trained dog won’t steal food, so Aspen will be fine”

“I’ll pay for anything she steals, which she won’t do, because she’s a good girl” Pat offers, absolutely confident in his words

“No, he won’t, I will. That’s the handler’s job”

“Well it doesn’t matter because she won’t steal”

“Anything she does is on you two” the man says

“Actually it’s on me but ok” Brian mutters. They order without incident and sit at one of the tiny tables in the back. Aspen curls up under the table and ignores everyone but Brian, just like she always does.

“Does that happen a lot?” Pat asks

“Uh kinda, usually in restaurants, which is why I usually just go to the same place every day.” Brian says

“Other than the routine.”

“Of course, of course!” Brian smiles again, back into the mood of the walk.

“Ok” Brian says “the stream” 

“Yeah, the stream”

Charles still won’t let Pat give him love until after he’s changed out of his work clothes, Pat thinks that’s a little ridiculous considering how long he’s been working with Brian and Aspen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, I do not think that the real life Brian David Gilbert has autism and I'm just projecting. the portrayal of autism in this fic is based on how I experience my own autism.

Patrick had no idea dogs liked strawberries but Aspen loves them, happily snapping up the ones Brian offers as he’s cutting them.

“Can I give her a roni?” Pat asks 

“Absolutely not, that’s enough salt for the month for her.” Pat laughs and opens the door for Brian, since he’s got his hands full with dog and strawberries.

“Is she gonna be in the stream?” Pat asks, Aspen hasn’t been in any videos so far, and even mentioning her on film is forbidden, but a more casual stream might be a good place to announce her existence.

“Why would she be in the stream?” Brian asks

“There’s not really any continuity to preserve.” Pat points out, there’s a flash of confusion on Brian’s face.

“Cont- oh right, yeah I just don’t think a stream is the right place to spring a secret dog on the fans, ya’know” Brian puts down his strawberries and sets Aspen up off camera, when she’s not sitting at Brian’s feet she’s got a little throw blanket to lay on. 

“Besides,” Brian continues, fake casual “I don’t want her to bump any of the equipment” 

“That’s fair” Pat says, because it’s none of his business if Brian wants to have his dog on the stream or not. Brian jumps onto the couch with more energy than Pat could ever scrounge up after a full day of work.

“Ready to go?” Pat asks, they’re going to be a little late getting started,since Brian took so long cutting the tops off his strawberries, which he insisted was very important and no he could not just bite them off he’s not a heathen,  _ Pat _ .

“Yep!” Brian says, and they start the stream.

Pat has a lot of fun despite the heartburn. He forgot how much fun Brian is to just hang out with, even though it’s for work and therefore not really hanging out.

“So, how did that go? For you.” Brian asks, beckoning Aspen over to him, she comes immediately and sets her head on his lap. Pat briefly wishes that he had such a good dog before feeling guilty about it, Brian doesn’t have Aspen for fun after all.

“Pretty good actually,” he says he tries to make eye contact with Brian instead of staring at Aspen like he’s  _ not supposed to do _ but Brian’s not looking at him, so it’s fine. “It definitely needs some polish but that’s just something that comes with time”

“Ok, I had a lot of fun but also it was really uh- nerve wracking? Because I don’t usually do live unscripted stuff like that, so every time I remembered I was live I would just worry that I was doing it wrong.”

“Nah, you were good, it gets less scary as you go, I promise.” 

“Hopefully,” Brian says, standing up and stretching “it was cool, but definitely took up pretty much all of my spoons for the rest of the day.”

“Your what?” Pat asks, feeling like the conversation’s gone totally off the rails while he wasn’t looking. Brian groans loudly.

“I can’t explain it well right now, but it’s basically like, how much energy disabled people have to do things, you can look up spoon theory or ask tomorrow and I’ll tell you about it, right now I just want to go to bed.” 

Pat had never really thought of Brian as the kind of person who  _ could _ get tired, which is dumb, since obviously everyone runs out of energy at some point. 

"Do you need help getting home?" Pat asks, because he doesn’t want Brian fall asleep on the subway (been there, done that, it’s the worst).

"Nah," Brian says "thanks for the offer, but I'm familiar enough with the way home to not have to think about it." 

"Ok, well if you ever need help I'm happy to" Pat says, watching Brian pack up Aspen's blanket and put on his backpack. 

"Ok." Brian says, and then he leaves, and Pat has to wonder if he offended Brian somehow.

Pat thinks Charles might be getting used to the dog smell on him, but it's hard to tell.

Brian messages him in Slack the next morning apologizing for not helping to clean up after the stream and also, in his words, being a bit of an ass.

_ 'Really, I totally forgot how to be a person when I'm out of spoons'  _

_ 'All good, I'm way worse when I'm tired' _

_ 'Also I didn't clean up after the stream either' _

_ ‘Pat Gill, they’re not gonna let us keep streaming if we never clean up!’ _

Which reminds Pat that he should look up that spoon thing. He should also really stop depending on wikipedia for this kind of stuff, because the whole article is maybe 2 paragraphs long and it says basically the same thing Brian had said the night before, spoons are a measure of energy for disabled people. Cool. He still doesn't really get it but he also doesn't think he ever will.

Pat doesn't see much of Brian at work that day, so Charles is happy with the lack of dog smell on him.

“If one of these balloons pops with me in the room I swear to god I will die.” Brian says shaking the bag of balloons 

“I think,” Patrick says “that balloons popping might be one of the worst sounds on the planet.” 

“Fluorescent lights are worse.”

“Oh yeah, when they’re not put in right and they buzz?”

“No, just all the time!” 

“I have never heard a properly installed light buzz”

“That’s the worst part Pat, all of you normies are like, ‘what buzz, I don’t hear a buzz’ while I suffer alone.” Pat laughs 

“I’ll just have to take your word for it” Pat says, still laughing a bit.

It's after the Zelda stream and Brian seems less tired than usual when they shut off the camera, maybe because the music lifting his spirits. Brian seems like the kind of person who’s whole mood can be changed with the right music. Not that anything from Pat would be “the right music”, unlike Brian who seems incapable of making a legitimately bad song.

"Mmmmm," Brian says as he stretches "I do not want to make dinner tonight, but Laura and Jojo aren't home tonight so," he lets out a big sigh as he finishes his stretch "I guess I just can't eat." Pat laughs a little, because if that isn’t the biggest mood.

"We could get something to eat. " Pat suggests.

"Oh, are you asking me out to dinner Pat?" Brian jokes.

"Absolutely, it would be my pleasure." He plays along.

"Only if I can pick the place." Brian says.

"I wouldn't dream of anything else." 

They end up at the chicken place basically right next to Polygon where they smile at Brian and ask if he just wants his usual and no one mentions Aspen. Brian nods and she punches it into the registrar without asking anything else. 

“Is that it?” she asks, Brian gestures at Pat, Pat’s been here a few times before, how could he not with it being basically the closest thing to Polygon, so he also gets the same thing he usually does.

“I’ll pay.” he says, pulling out his card, Brian makes an odd noise but doesn’t actually object.

They claim a table while they wait for their food and Brian taps his red painted nails on the table quietly. Pat almost asks about the nail polish when Brian suddenly breaks the silence.

“Was this supposed to be a date?” he asks.

“Oh shit, no, I just thought it would be less of a pain to pay for both of us.” Pat says “Definitely didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Sorry.”

“No it’s fine, I’m just bad at reading social cues sometimes,” he smiles nervously “one time this guy thought we were dating for like a month and I was totally clueless.”

“Seriously?” Pat asks.

“Yeah, Jonah had to point out that paying for every outing isn’t a thing friends normally do for each other.” they both laugh, Pat wonders briefly what it would be like to date Brian, but quickly shuts that down. No need to think about that. 

Their meal is pretty quiet, they chat a bit and make a few jokes but it’s clear that Brian is tired or out of spoons or whatever. Still, Pat thinks he’d like to do this more often.

Charles is very upset by the sheer amount of dog smell that got on Pat from sharing a table with Brian.

They’re setting up for a Jackbox video waiting for their guest, when Griffin calls for everything to stop for a minute.

“I just looked out my window and saw maybe the best dog,” Griffin says, which is absolutely worth stopping work for, "it's one of those big white fluffy dogs, I have no idea how it's surviving in Texas." 

"Poor Griffin, surviving on dogs he sees out his window while everyone working in the office gets to see a very good dog everyday." Simone jokes.

"Wait, is there a therapy dog at Polygon now? Why did nobody tell me?" Griffin whines. Brian makes an uncomfortable sound and Pat thinks maybe they should change the subject, but Jenna's too fast.

"Brian has a service dog," She says, "didn't you get the email?" 

"What? No I didn't get an email! There's a dog at Polygon and no one told me!"

"To be fair, I didn't know there was an email about this either." Brian says, he sounds nervous and Pat can hear Aspen move under the table.

"Really?" Simone asks "Sorry, I thought everyone got the email, I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise." She says apologetically.

"Wait, Brian, can I see your dog? Can I ask that?" Griffin asks.

"Uh yeah, I'll send you a picture when I get the chance." 

Their guest joins.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," Adam says, "what are we talking about?"

"Dogs." Griffin answers.

"Yeah, Griffin saw a dog out his window, what kind of dog did you say it was?" Pat asks, he makes quick eye contact with Brian who gives him an appreciative nod as Griffin and Adam go on about dogs that they've seen recently.

“Did Tara really send out an email about Aspen?” Brian asks before their next stream while they’re squirting paint onto the pallet. 

“It wasn’t all about Aspen,” Pat says, “it was just like, ‘don’t forget the meeting tomorrow, we have a new hire, oh by the way he’s got a service dog’ type thing” 

“Ah.” Brian says, he doesn’t look at Pat

“Do you not want people to know about her?” he asks, Brian makes a weird face and Pat thinks maybe that’s a bit too personal.

“It’s not- it’s not that I don’t want people to know it’s just,” he sighs “I don’t know, people are just stupid around dogs and disabled people.”

“I’m just stupid all the time.” Pat admits, Brian laughs 

“Honestly Pat Gill, you don’t give yourself enough credit,” he says “you’ve been pretty great with us”

“Yeah?” Pat asks

“Yeah, I wish everyone was as good with her as you are”

“Thanks,” Pat says “I read the wikihow.” he revels in Brian’s laughter.

They start going out for dinner more often after the Zelda stream, always to the same place, Pat asks Brian if it bothers him to have to eat at the same place so much and Brian laughs

“If I could have the same thing every meal of every day without negative affects on my health or bank account I absolutely would. Sometimes I get a giant frozen lasagna and eat that for every meal for like, a week.” Brian smiles then makes a face “sorry that’s probably pretty gross.”

“Nah I get it,” Pat says “depression meals are like that.”

Brian changes the subject.

Charles has made the amazing leap of being willing to curl up next to Pat without him changing out of whatever he wore to work 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no joke the wikihow article on interacting with people with service dogs is actually pretty darn good.


	3. Chapter 3

With Brian and Pat hanging out so much Pat starts to pick up some bad habits, especially with Aspen. To be fair, it’s not just Pat, everyone at Polygon is starting to feel more comfortable talking to and about Aspen. The current running joke is referring to Aspen as Brian’s personal assistant, calling her ma’am, and talking about her as if she’s human. Always off camera, as per Brian’s wishes. So obviously Pat has to fuck it up.

They’re about half way through their holiday stream and Brian is struggling to finish off his oreos while Pat gets back to driving, Aspen whines while Brian grimaces and laughs at the taste of oreos and tea together and Pat, so caught up in the euphoria of winning at mario cart, forgets that he’s streaming.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” he says, “do you need something?” Brian makes a distressed squeak as he finishes the last of his oreos and Pat suddenly realizes that he’s streaming. He chances a glance at chat, who he last checked in on while they were being very cursed about milk, and it’s not great. Chat has definitely picked up on the fact that there’s a dog in the room and are either typing the word dog in various formats, asking Pat who he was talking to or asking to see the dog.

Brian quickly changes the topic to his bad oreo eating decisions but chat absolutely will not let the dog thing go. Pat wins the game and tries to change the topic back to their food crimes but Brian just comes out and says it.

“That was my service dog that Pat was talking to, by the way, she’s not happy with my crimes.”

Chat explodes with the confirmation of dog, mostly people typing dog in all caps, but still a lot of requests to see it. Brian is very much not looking at chat.

“I don’t know if she can fit over here” Pat says, hoping to give Brian an out.

“No it’s fine I’m actually in need of some dog love so if you’re ok with her being on the couch for the rest of the stream that would be great for me.” Brian is being weird and Pat has no idea what to do other than roll with it so he just shrugs and tells Brian to do whatever he wants to do.

Brian calls Aspen over and she happily hops up onto the couch and settles over Brian’s lap. This might actually be the closest Pat has been to Aspen since since that first meeting, her head is almost entirely in his lap and he suddenly realizes how close he is to Brian. Is he always this close to Brian?

“So this is my personal assistant Aspen,” Brian says “please don’t ask me any questions about her.” 

“Right,” Pat says “seggo time?” 

The rest of the stream is ok. Brian is jittery the whole time and won’t look at chat, and chat won’t shut up about Aspen. They’re nice for the most part, if not a little nosey, they mostly just talk about how cute Aspen is, with a few people asking why Brian has her and what she does, or talking about how inspirational Brain is, which rubs Pat the wrong way for reasons he can’t explain.

Pat, for his part, feels like a monster.

The way Brian practically melts to the floor and Aspen lays over his chest the second they turn off the stream definitely doesn’t help.

“Are you ok?” Pat asks 

“Um-hm,” Brian squeaks “I’m just gonna stay off of all social media for a while, you know, avoid all the invasive questions and the essential oil sales people.”

“Shit, Brian, I’m so sorry-” his brain catches up with what Brian said “essential oil sales people?” Brian grones 

“I can’t even explain their shittyness right now, but like, they’ve stopped me in public to try to sell essential oils to me.” 

“What the fuck?” Pat whispers, Brian doesn’t respond. Pat observes him in silence, he’s closed his eyes and his hands are deep in Aspen’s fur, he’s taking deep measured breaths of someone who’s trying not to panic.

“Can I- is there something I can do?” Pat asks, he wants to help, he wants to hold Brian close and comfort him until he can breath normally. But like. In a professional coworker way. Definitely not in a romantic way, because Brian is his coworker and is younger than him and new to the company and Pat cannot be That Guy. Polygon does not need another scandal around someone being That Guy. Not that Pat would be That Guy anyways because he doesn’t even like Brian like that.

“I don’t know” Brian says, knocking Pat out of his weird spiral. Pat doesn’t know what else to say so they sit in silence for a while. Pat is starting to wonder if he should leave Brian alone when Brian finally lets out a big sigh and breaks the silence. 

“Can you grab my bag for me? It’s under my desk” his voice shakes a little. Pat jumps up.

“Yeah, no problem.” he says, relieved to have something to do. He feels bad leaving Brian alone and he feels bad for feeling relieved to leave Brian alone. 

When he returns Brian is still laying on the floor with Aspen looking basically the same as Pat had left him. 

“I got your bag.” Pat says, Brian makes grabby hands at him and Pat hands it over. Brian rifles through the bag until he finds his headphones, which he slips on before fiddling with his phone. Pat can’t see what he’s doing but he assumes that he’s either playing music or one of those weird meditation apps. 

Pat sits on the ground next to him while he lays there and breaths and pets Aspen, Pat’s not sure if he should be staying, if Brian wants him to leave, but he stays just to be safe. It takes a while but Brian eventually nudges Aspen off of him and sits up.

“Uh, you good?” Pat asks, Brian flaps his hands like he’s trying to get water off them.

“I’m- I’m good yeah.” he says, he pauses his hand flapping to pull at his hair, “I still have to go to Target tonight.” 

“I could do that.” Pat offers because it’s his fault Brian’s this close to a full on panic attack anyway.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.” Brian says, still pulling at his hair.

“I’m offering, it’s no big deal, you give me your coupon, I’ll go to Target and get a PS4, and I’ll bring it in tomorrow, you can pay me back with venmo or whatever” Aspen rests her head in the crook of Brian’s elbow as Pat’s talking, she starts licking Brian’s face when he doesn’t respond, Brian stops pulling his hair and pets her instead. 

“Are you sure?” Brian asks 

“Yeah, totally, I needed to go to Target this week anyway, Charlie’s running out of kitty litter” Brian nods

“Ok,” he takes a few deep breaths and starts flapping his hands again “yeah that’s fine” he fishes his wallet out of his pocket and hands over the coupon. They walk to the elevator together but Brian decides to take the stairs instead (absolutely insane on a building this tall but ok) and Pat doesn’t see him for the rest of the night.


End file.
